Traversing Boundaries in the Study of Public Administration:
A Tale of Three Courses
Students of public policy and public administration are often divided from students of international relations and comparative politics by virtue of the fact that public policy and public administration are usually taught from a domestic perspective.
This paper describes and evaluates three public administration courses, all taught at Long
Island Unviersity's Brooklyn campus, that added significant elements of comparative politics, international reations, and and/or foreign policy in an effort to take students eyond p;ubic administrations' fundamental concepts. Two of the courses were graduate seminars entitled "Decision-Making for the Public Purpose." The third was an undergraduate introductory administration course.
The undergraduate introductory course in public administration combined a presentation of case studies in management with an introduction to Kansas City as a bistate American city (straddling Missouri and Kansas) and Nunuvut as Canada's newsest territory. The semester included an intensive weekend visit to Kansas City during which the students also spent time at the Harry S. Truman Presidential Library and Museum I nearby Independence, thus having the opportunity to learn about U.S. foreign policy during a watershed in American and world history. The students had the opportunity to converse via conference call with key members of Nunuvut's territorial government, thus learning about the challenges of creating public institutions in a new territory under a federal system.
Nancy E. Wright
WISC Second Global Conference
Ljubljana, Slovenia
July 22-25, 2008
DRAFT--DO NOT CITE WITHOUT AUTHOR'S PERMISSION
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To the students, many of whom were second-generation immigrants to New York
City, the mention ofKansas City had conjured visions of cattle and cornfields, as well as remanants of antebellum American Southern segregation and other forms of discirimination. The brief but intensive visit completely dismantled this stereotype, thus affording an internaitonla, intercultural
The course on transportation policy was inspired by the fact that 2007 marked the centennial of the first gasoline-powered taxicab in New York City. Beginning as a course prospectus on flexible route transportation, e.g., taxis, limousines, commuter vans, as a product of American political culture, the course expanded to include a more comprehensive analysis of key aspects of air, motor vehicle, public transit, and nonmotorized transportation, such as cycling and walking.
The course began with an examination of --The Plane Truth, which examined four airline crashes and their influence (or lack thereof) on U.S. airline policy.
Class discussions centered on the extent to which airline policy, especially safety regulations, are incremental developments in response to crashes, and the degree to which that is or is not unique to American culture. The next book examined was --Driving
Forces, an analysis of what the author identifies as the "anti-automobile vanguard" in
America. Collective discussion of this book led the class to question whether or not the
United States would ever reduce automobile dependency, a discourse which provided a
Nancy E. Wright
WISC Second Global Conference
Ljubljana, Slovenia
July 22-25, 2008
DRAFT--DO NOT CITE WITHOUT AUTHOR'S PERMISSION
2

useful segue to articles by Robert Cervero on the feasibility of greenways and the relationship of automobile dependency to distance from employment.
The next section of the course departed from more direct discussions of public policy to examine American political culture through John W. Kingdon's America the
Unusual and Hodges' Taxi! A Social History of the Taxi Driver in New York City.
Incorporating an international dimension into public administration and public policy courses accomplisehes several important objecrtives. It introduces students to subject areas and parts of the world with which they may not be familiar. Because virtually every state or society ostensibly has a public interest and a public purpose, however, differently or similarly defined, this approach can be applied to places witin one's country, such as Kansas City, within one's continent, asuch as Nunuvut, and/or worldwide, such as the Balkanws, the Southern African Development Community, or
Korea. The course proceeded not by linking these issue areas, but rather by addressing them sequentially and each time raising the following questions: (1) how is public purpose defined? (2) what is the relationship of public purpose to public interest?
(3) what impact does the international dimension have on how public purpose is defined?
(4) is public purpose being served in eadch case? (5) is public interst being served in each case?
Nancy E. Wright
WISC Second Global Conference
Ljubljana, Slovenia
July 22-25, 2008
DRAFT--DO NOT CITE WITHOUT AUTHOR'S PERMISSION
3

The international dimension also provides an excellent opportunity to define political culture and examine it as both an influence and a produce of policy. For purposes of clarity, it is probably best to examine first the relationship between public policy and political culture, such as was done in the course on transportation policy, then factor in comparisons from other countries and cultures. To the extent that communication with individuals from other curlutes can be incoprorted, this greatly enhances students comperjension of cultural comparisons. Indiividuals exposed substantively to more than one culture offer a particular asset in this regard.
Nancy E. Wright
WISC Second Global Conference
Ljubljana, Slovenia
July 22-25, 2008
DRAFT--DO NOT CITE WITHOUT AUTHOR'S PERMISSION
4